Thanks to the "exuberant" performance of the H-IIA launcher, preferred over the original M-V, Japan will launch two additional payloads in solar orbit in addition to the VCO: the Ikaros solar sail and the UNITEC-1 engineering test

--------------------

I'm one of the most durable and fervent advocates of space exploration, but my take is that we could do it robotically at far less cost and far greater quantity and quality of results.

There is now a webpage (in Russian) : http://www.venera-d.cosmos.ruAn English version of the website may appear soon, but in the meantime one of several internet-based translation tools can be used.This website still shows an original mission conception, which included a lower cloud balloon as well as a second upper cloud balloon, as well as a lander and orbiter.

The article mentions that the operational life will be about 3 hours, which is the battery life. With a better power source, could this lander survive for longer? In other words, have there been sufficient advances in materials science that would allow a lander to survive, say, a week?, a month?

There have been various suggestions for a nuclear powered lander that would essentially operate an air conditioner to cool the critical electronics. Given the half life of Pu238, the life on the surface could be long. However, I don't think that the technologies are very far along in development. None of the Venus concepts studied by the Decadal Survey, for example, were long-lived landers.

Missions for high resolution (1-10 meters) radar imaging of the Venusian surface were proposed by multiple teams. Most active today are teams from Israel (MuSAR mission with possible NASA cooperation) and India.

In a nutshell, the problem for Venus landers is that innovative approaches to the heat require technological advances, which add to the mission cost and in a competitive environment, put any Venus surface selection at a disadvantage relative to the competitors. If the technology development were distributed over multiple missions that could make use of high-temperature endurance, that would be more favorable. We could have a dynamic where Venus surface missions keep losing Discovery / New Frontiers competitions ad nauseam, lacking the added support of technology for a superior science return. Note that the United States still has never launched a mission to Venus's surface (the one Pioneer probe which survived a short time withstanding).

In contrast, Venus holds advantages over most other destinations for orbital missions.

IMAGE COPYRIGHT
Images posted on UnmannedSpaceflight.com may be copyrighted.
Do not reproduce without permission. Read
here for further information on space images and copyright.

OPINIONS AND MODERATION
Opinions expressed on UnmannedSpaceflight.com are those of the
individual posters and do not necessarily reflect the opinions
of UnmannedSpaceflight.com or The Planetary Society. The all-volunteer
UnmannedSpaceflight.com moderation team is wholly independent
of The Planetary Society. The Planetary Society has no influence
over decisions made by the UnmannedSpaceflight.com moderators.

SUPPORT THE FORUM
Unmannedspaceflight.com is a project of the Planetary Society
and is funded by donations from visitors and members. Help keep
this forum up and running by contributing
here.